I found Danah
Boyd had some interesting information to share about the cyber transition many
faced when switching from the social networking sight MySpace to the current
day super giant of Facebook. Her article Implications
of User Choice: The Cultural Logic of “MySpace orFacebook?
presented
many things that I didn’t think of.
My
town that I came from is called Westlake Village, a primarily upper class
society. Everyone is pretty up to date with trends and there are no “Ghetto”
people who went to my high school. Basically everyone had money and I cannot
compare my life and say that ghetto people continued to use MySpace because I
think I was one of the last to switch over to the big FB.
But
I wasn’t like the normal kids in my town; I didn’t keep up with trends,
fashion, or really technology. I stick with what I am conferrable with until I
find the need to upgrade of change. Like Boyd said some kids made the switch
just because there was no one left who used MySpace, yep that was me. I never
would have made the switch if no one else did. I don’t think that would
classify me as a trend follower but I feel like it in a bit.
After
using FB for a while there are many differences from MySpace that I noticed.
And the biggest was the creation of “The Wall” and “News Feed.” I am really
surprised that Boyd didn’t include this in her paper. This made it much easier
to see what people were doing and what they were up to rather than looking at
each person’s individual profile. But
one thing I missed from MySpace was the ability to customize your profile. It
brought individuality to the table although as a whole MySpace was much more
commercialized. Facebook feels a little boring and plain at times with the
constant white background and inability to modify your profile layout.
For
one reason or another people made the switch though, even MySpace founder Tom
did so. He posted this on his FB fan page, “People seem very confused why I'm
on Facebook. I've had a profile since 2005 and a "fan page" since
2009. FB just created a feature where you can "subscribe" to
profiles. They asked me if I wanted to convert my "page" into a
simpler profile. Complicated? I suppose. Why am I not on MySpace? Because, I
left the company in early 2009, and like most of you, I don't like using it
anymore.. not a fan of what the new folks have done with MySpace.” It seems as
if the creator of the once dominant social networking sight has lost faith in
his website. This cannot be good for the future of the site itself.
What
will the future have in store for us? Will Facebook continue to be the dominant
social networking site or will something else take over? I think that Facebook
is to powerful and will be in our lives for generations to come, but once again
I thought that about MySpace….
There is something new form an
already quite successful company, Google+. I just made an account to see what
it is like. If there is some great power that can one day take down Facebook, I
think that the new social networking of Google+ may have a shot. But I am no
fortune teller and only the fate of Facebook will be revealed in the future.
